Li Shi, along with Liu Chengfeng and others, numbered over thirty burly men. Adding the Lu family members, the total number of people having dinner that evening was nearly fifty.
If you want to eat fried rice with eggs until you're full, the amount of rice you have at home is never enough.
Fortunately, the cassava that was soaked in water at the beginning is now edible. Jiang Tangtang had someone take the cassava out of the water, wash it clean, and planned to eat it to fill their stomachs if they didn't have enough fried rice later.
In addition, they had the wild vegetables picked that day washed and used wild peppercorns and wild onions as seasonings to make a refreshing cold dish.
However, the food was all prepared, but Lu Shiyan and the others still hadn't returned. At this point, the villagers couldn't sit still any longer.
Village Chief Song and several young men came to find the Lu family, asking if they wanted to form a team to go out and search.
Just then, the Lu family was also worried, and the Lu brothers took knives and were about to leave the valley.
Su was extremely worried.
The three brothers have all left the valley. What if they encounter soldiers from the Western Rong outside?
While Jiang Tangtang was filling a bamboo tube with fried rice, she called down the Lu brothers, saying, "Big brother, second brother, wait for me. I'll go with you. The cave is narrow, and there are many small paths inside. You're not used to walking like this, so you might get lost. I'll guide you."
Madam Su said repeatedly, "Yes, yes, let the third son's wife go with you. Eldest and second son's wives, pack more food and take it as provisions for the journey."
In her heart, Jiang Tangtang was almost like Guanyin Bodhisattva; with her around, her son could turn misfortune into good fortune.
With her third son not around, Jiang Tangtang wasn't comfortable leaving a group of men with her, so she simply asked her two other wives to come along.
She helped pack the food and told her two daughters-in-law, "Your third sister-in-law is in poor health, so you two should take good care of her on the way."
Luo Taohua thought to herself that the old woman was biased, but she still agreed with Zhou Qiongniang verbally.
While Su and her two daughters-in-law were packing, Jiang Tangtang took the opportunity to call on everyone to make torches.
The materials for making torches are pine resin that people collect from the mountains and wooden sticks of just the right thickness.
The cassava is steamed on a steamer rack, making it easy to pack.
Before long, the Su family had wrapped the cassava in banana leaves and placed it in their baskets, and the torches made by the villagers were also ready.
Carrying dry rations, torches, knives, and other supplies, the group headed towards the cave that led out of the valley.
It was the first time for Lu Shiwang and the others to walk through a cave, and they were all secretly relieved after seeing the terrain inside.
Fortunately, Jiang Tangtang came along today. If it weren't for her leading the way, they wouldn't have been able to find Lu Shiyan and the others; they might have gotten lost in the cave themselves.
"The cave has a complex terrain and narrow paths, making it very difficult to move around outside."
Zhou Qiongniang felt deeply worried about her future interactions with the outside world, as she admitted she didn't have Jiang Tangtang's memory.
Jiang Tangtang said, "It's not easy to walk for now, but don't panic, Second Sister-in-law. We'll organize people to repair the roads inside later."
Since it concerns future generations, the men traveling with us were also very concerned, and several of them asked at the same time, "I'm afraid it won't be easy to build this road, will it?"
Without the map provided by the system, Jiang Tangtang also felt that building a road in the cave would be a very difficult task.
However, the system's map clearly shows the terrain inside, the soil type of each area, and whether it's suitable for digging—all of this can be determined through the scanning system. Expanding the path inside the cave is therefore not a difficult task.
Moreover, not all the paths in this cave are narrow; only some of them are.
Therefore, building roads in caves is not actually that difficult. Of course, given the technology of this era, it wasn't exactly easy either.
Jiang Tangtang didn't want to dampen everyone's enthusiasm, so she skipped over the geology and other things and started talking about the road sections that needed to be built.
People breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that digging in three places would make the cave passage much easier.
Fortunately, it's not too difficult, otherwise wouldn't our descendants be forced to live as barbarians in the mountains?
That's just how people are; once they've got something, they want more.
When people were driven to the brink of despair by drought and war, all they wanted was a place where they could survive.
But now, they have a place to live. And so they begin to plan for their descendants.
They worried that it would be inconvenient to enter and exit the valley, and that their descendants would be affected once the world became peaceful.
However, once they were out of the cave, no one had time to think about those things anymore.
Unlike in the valley, where everyone lives in the village and there's no danger, no one knows what the situation is like outside. Even if they encounter bandits, let alone Western Rong soldiers, they'd be in serious trouble.
Therefore, after exiting the cave, everyone consciously extinguished their torches and became secretly on guard.
The Lu brothers followed Jiang Tangtang nervously. After walking for a while, they couldn't help but lower their voices and ask, "Third sister-in-law, do you know where Third Brother took his men? If we go like this, will we be able to find him?"
Jiang Tangtang had just been relentlessly pressuring the system, and the system, after much persistence, finally revealed the male lead's exact location to her.
Of course, it's also possible that the system wasn't threatened by her, but rather wanted her to go find the male protagonist to do a mission.
After all, Lu Shiyan had been outside the valley for the past two days, and the two of them hadn't had time to spend together, so their romance mission had been stuck.
Regardless of the system's purpose, Jiang Tangtang eventually figured out Lu Shiyan's location.
She nodded and said, "I roughly know the location."
Knowing that Jiang Tangtang had her own ideas, Lu Shiwang felt relieved and said admiringly, "That's good!"
While Jiang Tangtang and her men were traveling in the dark, Zhang Kui received another message.
"My lord, another Western Rong person has been killed," Zeng Wen said excitedly.
Zhang Kui remained relatively calm this time. "It's that same group of robbers again, trying to steal the grain?"
Zeng Wen said with great enthusiasm, "I don't know if it's that group or not, but they are definitely good people with chivalrous hearts."
I heard that the magistrate of Yihe County fled with his son, but was caught up by soldiers from the Western Rong.
The Western Rong soldiers robbed them of their belongings and tried to humiliate their families. The chivalrous man sliced them all up like pumpkins.
"And what about the magistrate of Yihe County?" Zhang Kui asked.
When the magistrate of Yihe County was mentioned, Zeng Wen lost his earlier excitement and a complicated expression appeared on his face. "He was killed by the soldiers of the Western Rong long ago."
Zhang Kui cursed, "Serves you right."
Although he knew that he was just a minor county magistrate, and that his attempt to stop the Western Rong's iron cavalry was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
But thinking that he didn't even have the courage to fight, and instead fled with his family, leaving Puzhou in such a difficult situation, I felt that he deserved to die.
"And then?" Zhang Kui took a sip of tea and continued, "The people you arranged still couldn't get in touch with that group?"
Zeng Wen said with shame, "We were still a step too late. By the time our people arrived, all that was left were corpses. If it weren't for a refugee who happened to see this scene, and the fact that I had the good fortune to meet the magistrate of Yihe County a few times, we still wouldn't have been able to confirm his identity."
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